I need to vent.
Every Tuesday morning I go to the school to volunteer in my Kindergartener's class. I check the kids' homework books and reading books. The homework books are awesome! I love that the teacher does them. Each page focuses on certain letters. Usually about 4 letters. The kids practice writing them and then either have to write a word that begins with that letter or find or draw pictures that start with the letters. It is something that is intended to help them practice their penmanship, not so much with learning the letters.
So, everytime that I go I come home depressed because of the number of kids that do not know the names of the letters or their sounds. These are five and six year old kids from well-to-do neighborhoods with what I thought were involved and caring parents. They should know these things. I don't even need to practice with Jenny anymore because we worked on them when she was littler and now she knows them. It just blows my mind that these parents can't spend 5 minutes a day going over the alphabet with their children. What are they doing that is so much more important than helping their kids to learn? It's NOT THAT HARD!
But more than that, these kids that don't know their letters are also the kids that couldn't tell me their phone number or address or birthday or in some cases their parents names when I had to quiz them! One kid didn't even know his last name!! Are you kidding me? You have to literally IGNORE your child for them to not know your name! Or theirs! I was appalled!
What happens when these kids get lost in a store and can't tell the police officer their name? It is so sad.
Thanks for letting me vent. I just feel so strongly that you HAVE to be INVOLVED in your childs life and the things they learn. You just can't leave it up to SOMEONE ELSE to do it for YOU!
November 27, 2007
My achy breaky heart and why
from Pezlady Jana at 10:53 AM
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4 comments:
I've had the same thoughts in my son's first grade class. I work with them on sight words and so many of them can't even sound things out properly. They have a sheet of words to work on each week and we work with J each night to go over them. It takes 10 minutes, tops. I don't understand the parents who don't work with their kids. J is reading on his own now and it's one of the highlights of my evening to have him read a little story to me. But, there are other kids in the class who can't read a thing.
I with you on the frustrations!
I hear ya! My son's first word was "Jen" because that's what he heard DH calling me all the time. "Mommy" came later.
My sons kindergarten class spent the entire first quarter teaching half of the kids in there the alphabet. My son learned the alphabet by osmosis by age 2, he had a ABC puzzle we put together...we didn't sing the ABC song, it was just "hey pass me that A over there..." type of thing.
I don't get it either.
I understand where you're coming from, and I agree with the fact that parent's do need to be involved in their children's education, but speaking as a mom who is basically single during the week and who works full time in addition to that,(I don't get home to even be with my kids until almost 7:00 every night)sometimes it's really really hard to find that 5 minutes. I get frustrated with the amount of things children are supposed to know these days. When I started Kindergarten we weren't expected to even know the alphabet...now if kids don't know it they're considered behind. I sent both of my kids to pre-school just so that they would be on the same level as everyone else. I think in todays world it's really really hard, especially in families where both parents work outside of the home. Maybe I'm a horrible mom 'cause I sometimes can't find the 20 minutes a night to "read with my kids". Just another perspective :) Love ya!
~Ronda
amen sistah!
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